


Cover Stories

by Mossberries (forget_me_nots)



Category: Last Exile
Genre: First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Original side characters, Pining, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Crush, because the story needed them, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24119608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forget_me_nots/pseuds/Mossberries
Summary: Vincent and Alex were roommates, and Vincent realizes that he'd like to be a bit more than just friends.
Relationships: Vincent Alzey/Alex Rowe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Cover Stories

**Author's Note:**

> YES I have posted this fic before, on my main pseud, but I was too shy about it, but uhhh I'm posting it again now because I am figuring out pseudonyms work here on ao3. Title is taken after a song from the ost. This fic is technically my first attempt at smut so like aaaaa

Alex caught Vincent’s attention as soon as he met the other cadet. He moved into their shared room quietly, ignoring Vincent’s greeting and introduction except for a quiet hello, vanishing to locate his classes, but not before Vincent had gotten enough time to observe him. Tall, tan, with dark hair and golden-brown eyes, Alex was a private, shy student. 

Vincent had his work cut out for him, it seemed, if he wanted to bring Alex out of the shell he’d so clearly built around himself. The cadet grinned to himself. He liked a challenge. He intended to eat dinner with his new roommate that night, but Alex evaded him. It wasn’t until after the sun had set that Vincent was able to pin down Alex’s location: in their room at his desk, flipping idly through a textbook.

Vincent asked to compare schedules, and Alex slid a paper towards him. 

“Well, we share a few classes,” Vincent said. “We should study together! It’s always good to have someone to go over homework with.”

Alex nodded silently, not looking up from his book, and Vincent frowned. Alex was going to take a bit more work than he thought.

Vincent tried everything. The two studied and did homework together. He joked, told stories, invited Alex along on excursions with his other friends, offered to eat meals with him, lent books and pens and paper, everything he could think of. Occasionally, he managed to coax a rare smile, or even rarer laugh from his roommate, and Alex had become a bit more talkative, but he was still so shy. Such apparent lack of significant progress was frustrating, but Vincent realized, one night, that he might be coming off as a bit overbearing, and that he should give Alex some space. Alex seemed to enjoy spending time alone in the towers of the school, preferring to do his studying there rather than in the library. Perhaps he just liked being alone.

He sighed, and rolled over to stare at Alex’s sleeping form. What was it about his roommate that made Vincent want to be his friend so badly? It wasn’t as if Vincent didn’t have other friends. Even though none of his friends from childhood had come to the academy with him, it was easy for Vincent to quickly acquire a new circle of friends.

When he’s finally managed to make Alex smile for the first time, Vincent’s heart had skipped a beat, and he’d wanted to cheer in triumph. It wasn’t more than just a slight quirk to Alex’s lips, but it was enough of a victory for Vincent. And when one of Vincent’s jokes had first made Alex laugh, the sound starting as a soft chuckle, but turning into a rich, full laugh…

Vincent wanted to hear it again and again, even though he’d memorized it almost instantly. 

It was because he always looked so sullen, Vincent rationalized. Alex always wore a closed, almost bored expression on his thin face. Seeing such joy was a treat, and Alex deserved to be happy more often than he appeared to be. School wasn’t supposed to be so austere and controlled. There should be time to have fun! 

The next few weeks, Vincent let Alex have his space, while still inviting him in on some of the fun adventures Vincent was getting up to with his other friends, even if Alex usually declined, or didn’t seem to enjoy himself as much as everyone else when he did. 

But when Vincent mentioned that he and a few other friends were sneaking out to check out the vanship hangar one night, Alex perked up instantly, an unfamiliar spark in his eyes.

“The vanship hangar?” He asked, as if he’d misheard.

“Yeah. I mean, I know they don’t offer piloting classes until third year, but I just want to go see what we’re going to have to be learning on,” Vincent said, shrugging nonchalantly. “You want to come?”

Alex nodded, and Vincent felt himself grin.

The group of them snuck out after curfew, something Alex had never done before, and hurried down to the hangar. One of Vincent’s upperclassmen friends had promised to let the group of them into the hangar and show them around a little. Vincent was suddenly nervous that William wouldn’t show up, and that he’d gotten the whole group of them in trouble, but William was there, waiting at the side door to the hangar. 

Vincent had never seen such joy on Alex’s face as he did when they walked into the hangar and William switched on the lights, illuminating the half dozen Vanship. The Vanship were old, and beat up, but Vincent and his friends ran reverent hands over the dented fuselages as if they were more precious than water, than claudia. 

“Do you want to be a pilot?” Vincent asked when the two had returned to their room.

Alex nodded fervently.

“There’s nothing like the freedom of being a vanship pilot. It’s just you and your navi and the sky.” 

There was a wistful tone to the other cadets’ voice, and a soft smile on his face as he stared out the window at the night sky, as if imagining taking off into it with one of the beat-up Vanship he’d just been investigating down at the hangar. With a creak, he tipped his chair back to get a better look out the window, lost in a daydream. His dark hair was getting longer, and he reached absently up to push it out of his face, eyes still gazing almost sightlessly into the darkness beyond the window. 

Vincent shook his head, and tore his eyes away from Alex. Not for the first time as of late. More and more often, Vincent found himself staring. And frequently at inopportune times, such as in class or while studying, or, much to Vincent’s horror, even inappropriate ones, such as when Alex was changing. He didn’t understand it, but was thankful Alex didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he was too shy to say anything about it. 

“It’s late, I’m going to bed,” Vincent said, shoving away such thoughts. It  _ was _ late. He’d spent more time at the vanship hangar than he’d expected.

Alex nodded silently, but didn’t look away from the window and his thoughts until Vincent turned out the one remaining lit lantern in their room. Then, he let his chair fall back to all four legs with a creak and soft thump, and stood to change into his nightclothes. Vincent pointedly rolled over to face the wall. Alex deserved privacy, no matter how much Vincent wanted to indulge in the unusual and invasive pleasure of watching. It would simply be too obvious, like this. Only when Vincent heard the creak of bedsprings, and Alex’s breathing slow to sleeping, did Vincent roll back over.

Alex looked so much more peaceful when he slept. His face relaxed, and his expression became softer, more open. The dark locks, because there was no other way in Vincent’s mind of describing the loose curls of Alex’s hair, sometimes fell across Alex’s face as it did now. Vincent wanted to get up and gently tuck the stray locks behind Alex’s ear. The urge struck him so strongly it took a surprising amount of willpower to remain in his own bed. 

What were these feelings? Why did he want to run his fingers through Alex’s hair so badly? Why did he want to watch him smile, hear him laugh? And why did such thoughts make Vincent’s heart race so? He could no longer write this off as friendship, it was desire, plain and simple. A crush? 

No, Vincent refused to admit such a thing. He’d had crushes before, girls in his class growing up. It felt similarly enough, their attentions making his heart leap dizzyingly in his chest. The way Alex’s smile did, or catching a glimpse of his bare chest while changing, or hearing his laughter… 

Vincent rolled over again, face burning. Alex was a boy, practically a man, just as Vincent was. There was no way Vincent had a crush on him. Besides, crushes were for young schoolchildren and playgrounds and the teasing of youth. And girls. He didn’t get crushes on boys, it wasn’t the way things were. 

But there was no denying how Vincent felt about Alex. 

The innocent admission to himself seemed to be the start of a slippery slope, however. Vincent suddenly found himself craving attention from Alex, in much the way he’d craved attention from the girls he’d fallen for back in his youth. Hadn’t he, up until arriving at the academy, chased after the attention and affections of a girl? Elizabeth? Or was it Anne-Marie? Vincent couldn’t remember, now. Alex was the one one he could think about. 

He almost had to force himself to steel his gaze away from Alex in the mornings and evenings when they changed. He had to calm his racing heart when the two of them went over homework together, and when they were paired up in class one day, Vincent had to stop himself from letting out a whoop of delight. Had he ever been this giddy to spend time with anyone before?

And when he indulged, one afternoon when Alex had gone to study alone in one of the towers of the school, in the shameful teenage act of self-pleasure, Vincent found his mind constantly wandering back to his roommate, rather than any beautiful girl he kept forcing into his mind. Of shy, stoic Alex, his lean muscular body, the way he sometimes stared dreamily out at the sky, his slight smile, how good he’d look on his knees between Vincent’s legs… and that was the thought that sent him over the edge. 

He couldn’t look Alex in the eye for the next few days. As if his gaze might reveal his affections, and his improper actions. 

Vincent dodged around his feelings for the next few weeks, doing his best to maintain the normality in his friendship with Alex. It had taken too much work just to get the other cadet to be even somewhat open with Vincent, and he didn’t want to ruin that because of his silly crush. He didn’t want Alex to know his true feelings and move rooms. Perhaps that was a selfish thought. He didn’t want Alex to think bad of him.

Weeks turned into months, and suddenly their first year at the academy was ending.

“Would you mind being roommates again next year? They handed out the forms for next years housing,” Alex said one evening, as the two studied for the upcoming final exams. Vincent was surprised Alex was the one to bring up the subject. 

“I was just about to ask the same question! I wouldn’t mind at all. Unless you’d prefer otherwise,” Vincent said.

Alex was silent for a few nerve wracking heartbeats, expression unreadable.

“No. I like rooming with you.”

Vincent suppressed a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad you do. Plus, it’s easier to just room together again. That way you don’t have to deal with the uncertainty or the possibility of ending up with a bad roommate. I mean, you could end up with someone like Lorin,” Vincent said. Lorin was a notorious slob, and Simon complained endlessly about it.

“Or someone who talks even more than you do.” 

Vincent froze, feeling his smile falter, before Alex smiled wryly.

“Come on, I’m joking, Vincent. I don’t mind it. I think if I ended up with anyone else this year, I wouldn’t have talked to anyone.”

“That would have been a very lonely year.”

“Good thing I did end up with you, then.”

They both passed their exams, and then it was time to head home for the summer. 

And the summer months, once feeling so short, now seemed torturously long to Vincent. He spent his time writing letters to his other friends from the academy, cursing the fact he’d forgotten to ask for an address from Alex until he was already halfway home, and spending time with his childhood friends, galavanting across the green fields and other old haunts of his home.

“Days until break is over,” Roland read, and Vincent snatched the scrawled calendar from his friend’s hand. “You’re not actually counting down the days to go back to the Academy?”

“So what if I am?” Vincent said casually, shoving the paper into the drawer of his desk. He must have left it out last night. 

“Isn’t it supposed to be awful? You have to share a tiny room, and go to even more classes. Do they really wake you up in the middle of the night for training exercises?” Roland asked, sitting down sprawlingly in Vincent’s chair.

“Nah, that’s only when you’re an upperclassman, or getting hazed.”

“Did you get hazed?”

“I didn’t do anything that would warrant hazing.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Vincent  _ I  _ know.”

“Alright, so I did sneak out a few times, and was out past curfew a few more, but nobody ever caught me.”

Roland picked through the few envelopes on Vincent’s desk.

“Any girls catch your fancy, hm? Surely not all the military girls are horrible.”

He knew such a question would be coming. At school, he’d always said he had a girl he liked back at home. Which had been true.

“No,” Vincent said simply, and Roland held up an opened envelope.

“Still pining after Elizabeth, then?”

Vincent seized the opportunity. He had, in the past, had a crush on her. Yes, that was the girl he’d liked. They still wrote each other. He’d probably have to pay her a visit this summer in order to keep up those appearances.

“Oh don’t take that tone! She’s nice! And very pretty,” Vincent said defensively. 

Roland rolled his eyes, and dropped Elizabeth’s letter back into the stack. Vincent silently thanked both Roland and Elizabeth for providing him a cover story.

As soon as it rained, Vincent ran out into the downpour to find his friends. Every rare summer rain brought a very special sort of fun: swimming. Summer rain meant the thin streams would swell to fill their spring banks again, and the temporary pools would fill again. He met up with his old friends to visit their favored pool from the summer rains of their youth. It was shallower and muddier than he remembered, but it provided an important opportunity for Vincent to test something. Was it only Alex, or perhaps other boys would spark his interest?

The pool was barely large enough to have a good race across, and they could all still stand with their heads above water at it’s deepest point. How deep the pool had once seemed, and how impossible to cross. 

“Ugh, the bottom’s so squishy!” said Roland, shifting from foot to foot in the shallows of the pool.

Killian splashed murky water at Roland.

“That’s because it dries up and becomes dust until it rains again!” he said.

Roland tackled Killian, pushing him down into the thick, slippery mud at the edge of the pool, and the two shouted and wrestled like children. Vincent stat clear of the mud and murky water with Zachary, while Isaac and Ryker raced each other across the pool and back.

“Not feeling up to swimming yet?” Zachary asked, and Vincent shrugged, looking up at the still cloud-streaked sky. He hadn’t even gotten in the water yet, but he was soaked through from the rain. They’d all lain their clothes out on the wet grass to dry, but none of it had affected Vincent at all, except for the childish joy of running around in the rain, tipping his head back to try and catch a mouthful of the pure rainwater. Maybe it was just because he knew Isaac and Ryker and Killian and Roland and Zachary so well, but seeing them undressed sparked nothing in Vincent. It was only Alex.

“Just thinking,” Vincent said, leaning back to watch the sun chase the rain clouds away to some other parched town.

“It’s been a while since we’ve all swam.”

“Yeah. It’s weird not all being in class together. I miss you guys sometimes.”

Roland yelled and retched as Killian tried to push his face into the mud. Zachary looked on with a skeptical expression.

“I don’t miss getting pushed into the mud like that.”

“That’s why I’m waiting for those two to wear themselves out!” Vincent said, and Zachary laughed. 

Zachary cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down: “Hurry up and stop already! Some of us don’t want to get covered in mud!”

In response both Roland and Killian began throwing handfuls of mud up at Vincent and Zachary. Laughing, the two scrambled down the hillside to the muddy bank of the pool to retaliate.

Vincent spent his days reliving the summers of his youth, and his nights dreaming of Alex. Innocently, of walking to classes together, studying together, wandering the dry grassy hills around Vincent’s house together, or of Alex looking out the window of their shared dormitory room, the wide sky reflected in his gold-brown eyes. And less innocently. Of Alex, naked and muddy and pushing Vincent down in the fleeting after-rain pool, eyes sparkling, and smiling in a knowing way; Alex undressing in the evening, but climbing naked into Vincent’s bed; and a million other things that had Vincent waking flushed and hot and uncomfortable. 

He hoped such dreams would stop once he returned to the academy. The thought of returning suddenly made his stomach fill with dread. But he kept up his scribbled calendar, and the summer dragged on.

The day before Vincent left it was cloudy, and he finally paid Elizabeth the visit he’d been putting off. They had coffee, and talked, and Vincent apologized that he’d put off visiting her for so long. He hoped she’d just write it off as nerves. 

“You’ll write more, won’t you?” She said as he was leaving.

“Of course. I promise,” Vincent said, smiling back easily. Elizabeth grinned back, practically glowing with delight. He tried to bask in that glow, in her happiness, but it wasn’t her smile he wanted. He hadn’t wanted her smile for quite some time.

The sky opened up and the clouds burst as Vincent was leaving. One last late summer rain. He desperately wanted to dash off the small airship and out into the fields with his friends, just one last time, to swim and play in the mud, and feel the rain soak him to the bone. Instead, as they flew over the sodden fields, he pressed his face to the rain-streaked window and squinted down, trying to catch one last glimpse of the muddy pool and his friends who were no doubt by now waiting for it to fill enough to swim in.

He saw many such small pools, but none of his friends.

Vincent had promised Roland that he’d make a calendar counting down for his return home. When he wrote, as he’d also promised to, he lied and said he’d tacked the calendar to his wall to help keep track of homework. The thought of numbering his days with Alex, however, was unthinkable.

Alex had smiled when he’d first entered their shared room, and found Vincent unpacking. Vincent clung to the memory for the rest of the day.  _ He smiled at me. He smiled at me!  _

But that night, after Alex had fallen asleep, Vincent lay awake. Why on earth did he get so excited about Alex smiling at him? It didn’t mean anything different. They were friends. Friends smiled at each other all the time. 

Such thoughts still couldn’t put too much of a damper on Vincent’s joy.

The second year threw the cadets into much more rigorous classes and training. And by the end of the first week, Vincent was exhausted and ready to sleep as long as he could over the weekend. 

As he made his way back to his room after dinner, he was intercepted by one of his friends. 

“We’re going to go get a drink, want to come?” Leon offered.

“Drink? You can go get water on your own. It’s been a long week, I’m going to bed,” Vincent said, and Leon laughed.

“No, not water, we were going to head down to the bar in town.”

It took Vincent a few moments for his tired brain to process what Leon was saying. 

“Oh like alcohol drink,” he said, before cursing how stupid he sounded. Leon just laughed again. “Maybe some other time.” 

“Yeah, you sound beat.”

They parted ways and Vincent was asleep even before Alex returned to their room. 

It wasn’t that Vincent hadn’t had alcohol before. He’d had the occasional glass of wine at parties his parents hosted, and like any teenager, had broken into his parents’ liquor cabinet and gotten stupid drunk with his friends, and then horribly sick the next day. Because of his own exhausted reaction the previous week, his friends at school thought, for some reason, he shouldn’t be brought down to the bar, and instead, the group of them gathered in Otto’s room with a bottle of vodka.

Vincent did not extend the invite to Alex. Not this time.

The group of them played a game, ‘never have I ever’, which devolved into increasingly more specific scenarios targeted at specific people. By that point, Vincent was pleasantly buzzed, and watched his friends argue over the current scenario: “Never have I ever asked out a girl that my best friend had been eyeing for weeks.” Sure, some of the scenarios had of course, been tailored to Vincent’s own hare-brained exploits, but he’d never done anything truly mortifying, other than crushing on his roommate, and he wasn’t about to let his friends know about that.

Hoping to avoid a bad hangover, he left soon after. 

Not wanting to wake, Alex, Vincent changed into his nightclothes in the dark, which, uncoordinated from how tipsy he was, ended up waking Alex anyways, in attempting to put on his pajama pants and falling unceremoniously against Alex’s bed. Usually he was better about changing in the dark, but Vincent felt-off balance.

“Are you alright?” Alex asked, rubbing at his eyes.

“Just fine,” Vincent said, hauling himself back to his feet and pulling up his pajama pants at the same time. “Just lost my balance, is all!”

Vincent took Alex’s silence as skepticism, but shrugged it off. 

Once Vincent managed to climb into bed, (his own, even though it was tempting to share, tonight), he said goodnight, but didn’t get a reply. 

A month or so later, after a big test, Vincent and his friends had planned on going down to the bar in town to celebrate. He invited Alex along, out of habit, not expecting him to come along. 

“You do know what you’re getting into, right?” Vincent asked, falling back in the group to where Alex walked. Alex’s shoulders were hunched against the cold, and he’d flipped up the collar of his coat. 

“Not exactly, but I didn’t want to celebrate that test being over by going to bed by curfew,” Alex said, and Vincent barked out a short laugh, and shoved Alex playfully. 

“Well, that’s the spirit! I’ll make sure you don’t go too overboard!”

That didn’t mean Vincent could stop himself from going overboard. The whole group of cadets staggered back to the academy a few minutes before curfew, and Vincent and Alex both leaned heavily on each other, sniggering at their attempts to keep quiet. The late fall night was cold enough to make their breath steam, but Alex was like a furnace at his side, and Vincent couldn’t be cold when he was so close. Thoughts dripped unbidden into Vincent’s mind, as hot as molten ore and just as thick. He felt muddled and giddy at the same time, carefully climbing the stairs, pressed against Alex. 

One thought dripped in and cooled, refusing to leave. A selfish, vulgar thought. It made Vincent’s stomach twist to the point where he thought he might really be sick. He leaned his head on Alex’s shoulder, which didn’t help the feeling at all, and he faltered.

Alex stopped.

“Are you alright?” 

“Fine,” Vincent said shortly, not trusting himself with more than one word.

“You don’t look fine,” Alex said. He looked worried.

“‘M fine,” Vincent insisted, but Alex steered them toward the bathroom. 

Vincent drank water directly from the tap, bending awkwardly over the sink. As he did so, he tried to talk himself out of what he was planning on doing next.

_ Just wash your face and go to bed! _ He told himself, turning off the water and straightening to look at himself in the mirror. His face was unusually flushed. Vincent’s gaze slid over to Alex’s reflection.

_ Don’t do it, Vincent. _

He turned away from the sink, towards Alex.

“Better?” Alex asked, and Vincent walked over, as steadily as he could manage. He could hear his heart hammering in his ears as he reached out to tuck a lock of Alex’s hair behind his ear. It was just as soft as he’d imagined it to be.

Alex didn’t move, just stared at Vincent, slightly confused. 

Vincent wanted to touch Alex’s face, kiss him, pull him close, but some last remaining rational part of Vincent’s brain restrained those urges. This, and what he was about to do, he could pass off as drunken experimentation. But such romantic gestures could not. So Vincent grabbed Alex’s hand instead, and pulled him towards the showers.

“Can I try something?” He asked.

“What kind of something?”

Vincent smiled as well as he could manage, and then knelt before Alex. Confused, Alex just looked blankly down at him. Last chance to back out.

Vincent reached for the buckle of Alex’s pants, then paused.

“May I?”

A blush crept slowly over Alex’s face as the realization of what Vincent was asking dawned on him. 

“You want to- to…” Alex trailed off.

“Give you a blow job, yes,” Vincent said. “Unless you don’t want that.”

“No! I… um… have you ever?” 

Vincent shook his head.

“Like I said, I want to try something.”

“Ok then. Go ahead,” Alex said, somewhat breathlessly. Vincent didn’t blame him, he was just as surprised that Alex was letting him do this, too. 

Alex was half hard when Vincent undid his pants, and looked away, embarrassed. Vincent gave himself a heartbeat to admire Alex, before gently grabbing his cock to stroke it to full hardness. Alex still didn’t look down, even when Vincent licked, then took the tip of the other cadets’ erection into his mouth. 

Vincent bobbed his head forewords and nearly choked, before deciding to take things just a little slower. He wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing, but when Alex gasped softly, Vincent knew he was doing something right. He finally found a rhythm, using his hand where he couldn’t reach with his mouth. When he finally looked up at Alex’s face, his roommate had blushed deeply, and had a hand clamped firmly over his own mouth, muffling the soft moans he was making, golden brown eyes squeezed shut. 

The sight made Vincent’s pants feel even tighter than they already did. 

Alex peeked one eye open, glancing down at Vincent, before shutting it again just as fast, moving the hand over his mouth to cover his face instead. Still just as shy as ever. Vincent wanted to laugh, but his mouth was a bit busy.

“Vincent, I- wait-” Alex stammered out a few moments later. “I’m-”

Vincent had ignored the slight taste of precome, but when the bitter taste of Alex’s orgasm filled his mouth, Vincent choked and pulled back, sitting back on his heels. He spluttered, and spat weakly, the mix of saliva and come dripping down his chin and onto his shirt. 

Alex leaned back against the tile wall behind him, still not looking down at Vincent, who wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as they both caught their breath. 

He’d have to wash his shirt, Vincent figured. And they were both lucky nobody had walked in on them. Such luck wasn’t likely to last long, and Vincent began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. He could just wash it off in the sink and say he’d been sick if anyone came in…

“What are you doing?” Alex asked, and Vincent looked up, startled. Alex had slid down the wall to sit in front of him, pants buttoned up again, but face still flushed.

“I have to clean my shirt before anyone else sees me,” Vincent said. 

Alex glanced down at Vincent’s messy shirt, and then at the rather obvious bulge in his pants.

“Do you want me to-”

Vincent waved him off before he could finish.

“We’ve pushed our luck enough tonight.”

“I owe you, then.”

The words ran through Vincent’s mind as he washed his shirt in the sink, and tried to ignore his arousal. He couldn’t believe he’d actually had the self control to completely wave off Alex’s offer. 

When one of the other cadets that lived on their floor came in to use the bathroom, Vincent knew he’d made the right choice. It wouldn’t have been as embarrassing as being the one caught on his knees, he certainly would have had a hard time explaining it. Being caught washing his shirt in the sink, he just said he’d spilled something on himself, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Alex was asleep, or at least, pretending to be, when Vincent returned to their room. Vincent hung his shirt up on the door to his closet, pulled his pants off, and climbed into bed in his underwear, not bothering to put his night clothes on. Whatever was going to happen in the morning was a problem for sober Vincent.

Vincent woke up when the sun from the window fell over his face. He sat up and groaned, hit first with a headache, and then the realization that he was only wearing his underwear, from the coldness of sitting up completely shirtless. 

When Vincent nearly collided with Alex at the door to the bathroom, when he swore loudly in surprise, and when Alex winced at the sound, the memory of what Vincent had done last night rushed back. He shoved aside his panic. He didn’t panic, as a general rule.

“Sorry, didn’t expect that,” Vincent said, still holding the bathroom door open, stepping aside to let Alex past.

“You didn’t have to be that loud,” Alex grumbled.

“Hungover?”

“Think so.”

“Go get something to eat, that’ll help.”

Alex grunted, and walked past.

Perhaps he didn’t remember. Had it even happened? Vincent remembered taking his shirt, dried stiff, off the door of his closet, and wondering how it had gotten there, not even a few minutes ago. That was the only indication of Vincent’s drunken mistake, and now it was gone, dropped into the basket of other laundry waiting to be washed. If not for that, the whole incident could have been passed off for a particularly strange dream. 

I owe you, then.

Vincent leaned his aching head against the wall under the warm spray of water, water he was wasting because he was clean now. What should he do? For the first time, he was at a loss. For now, he’d pretend it hadn’t happened, unless Alex brought it up. Then he’d… well, that depended on Alex’s reaction. He could always pass it off as a drunken mistake, or just curiosity. Vincent knew other boys experimented, he’d heard enough stories from his friends. 

Alex never brought it up, and Vincent wouldn’t let himself be awkward about it, after all, you can’t be awkward about something that never happened. Just a dream. He’d had more than enough practice ignoring dreams of similar content with Alex. Over the next few weeks, he caught Alex giving him an odd look, but every time Alex noticed Vincent had noticed his observation, he’d look away. Neither of them mentioned that. A few times Alex looked like he was about to say something, but never did. 

They went on with their lives.


End file.
